Scanian (linguistics)
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Scanian (Swedish: Skånska ) is a dialect of Sweden spoken in Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden. Scanian is by Ethnologue and SIL classified as a separate language, mainly for historical reasons (see below), but does not fulfill the generally accepted criteria for a language, and is also not regarded as a language separate from Swedish by most Swedes. Most Danes today consider Scanian to be even harder to understand than Swedish.
Furthermore, different Scanian dialects differ considerably, and none of them are standardized or supported by any governmental authorities. Swedish is the language of education and government, and Swedish vocabulary and grammar dominate most dialects. The spoken prestige dialect(s) must be considered as a variety of Standard Swedish. Following the industrial revolution and urbanization, genuine rural dialects are in decline.
Some Scanian debaters express the view that Scanian is a suppressed minority language in Sweden and ought to be granted official status as such and receive legal protection.
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Where is Scanian spoken?
The term Scanian may be applied to dialects spoken by populations of vastly different sizes inhabiting an area of similarly differing size:
- In its very widest meaning,1 it may be used by non-speakers as a catch-all denomination for all Swedish dialects of Southern Scandinavia where the exclusive use of uvular R dominates, which is delimited by a border that stretches approximately from Varberg in the West over Jönköping to Oskarshamn in the East (approx. 2 mill. inhabitants, some of whom are migrants). This is the same area as that of the more narrow definition for where South Swedish Standard is the spoken variety of Standard Swedish.
- More strictly, it may denominate the dialects of the Swedish province of Scania. (approx. 1.2 mill. inhabitants), or some subset of these.
- In its maybe most common use, it stands for more dialectal speech registers and varieties in Scania, as opposed to "rikssvenska" (i.e. South Swedish Standard) that has to be used in contact with people from other parts of Sweden.
- In its most narrow meaning, it includes only genuine rural dialects (less than 100.000 speakers).
History
Immediately following the Swedish acquisition of the Danish districts Scania, Blechingia, and Hallandia (collectively known as Terra Scania) in 1658, a process of Swedification took place, including a switch of language used in church, similarly with in other newly acquired provinces along the west coast and along the border to Norway. Bornholm was also part of Terra Scania, but was not acquired by Sweden, and the Scanian language there remained. The transformation became more successful with the 20th century dominance of Swedish language radio and television and the increased travelling from other regions in Sweden. The gradual language transition from Danish to Swedish resulted in a mix between these two languages. Before the 18th century, Scanian can be characterized as a dialect of Danish, but nowadays it clearly has mostly Swedish characteristics with basically only the pronunciation and some grammar differing from standard Swedish.
The characteristic Scanian diphthongs and triphtongs, which neither occur in Danish nor Swedish, are believed to have originated by the Scanian populations attempts to copy the Swedish pronunciation.
Some consider Scanian to have been a distinct dialect even before the Swedish acquisition. They refer to a letter from the 16th century, where the Danish Bible translators were advised not to involve Scanian translator since their language was not proper Danish. Denmark proper was considered to consist of three parts, one on Jutland in the west, one on Zealand ("with the islands"), and Terra Scania in the east (of which today only Bornholm remains), with each having its own Danish dialect.
It has been proposed that the Scanian dialect did in fact have many unique words already at that time, but this has not been documented. There did, however, exist many original Scanian words in the 19th century, which is documented by several Scanian word books published lately. This, however, probably is the case of every remote location. The words and pronunciation differ around Scania, as they were sometimes only spoken by a small number of people in small, remote villages. Villages close to the sea for instance, such as Falsterbo and Limhamn, had many unique words connected to fishing. Today most of these words no longer have any use in the spoken language.
A general interest in the Scanian dialect was first established in the early 19th century, when an interest in folklore emerged. However, according to Helmer Lång, the Scanian dialect and its folk stories were not given proper attention, because the Swedes considered them Danish, and the Danes, on the other hand, avoided dealing with this area which they had painfully lost.
In the end of the 19th century, new interest in Scanian arose. An early spokesperson was Henrik Wranér (1853-1908) who wrote books on the Scanian dialect, for instance Kivikja Snackk..." (1901). His contribution was manifested with his Selected Works (Valda Verk) which was published in 1922-23). His main successor was Axel Ebbe (1869-1941), who in Scanian wrote Rijm å rodevelske and even a witful translation of the Bible (Bibelsk historie, published in 1949).
Scanian was not well known north of Terra Scania and its adjecent districts until the Scanian movie actor Edvard Persson sang his way into the Swedish nation during the 1930s and 1940s. More recently, radio voices Kjell Stensson and Sten Broman popularized the dialect. Artists Mikael Wiehe and Björn Afzelius kept their accents as they were travelling and singing around the country. Hans Alfredson is a popular well-known showman, singer and performer who speaks with an unmistakable Scanian accent. Nowadays, there are even Scanian dictionaries, often witfully written.
Specific features
Scanian is a uvular R-language. Like Danish and several dialects of Norwegian Scanian realizes /r/ as a uvular trill or fricative rather than with the alveolar articulation and retroflex assimilations of Svealand Swedish and some other varieties of Swedish.
Unmistakingly Scanian is a heavy use of diphthongs and triphthongs.
Scanian is one of the most distinguishable dialects in Sweden. In an ongoing internet poll in which more than 30,000 people have voted on the website of a major newspaper, Scania is currently considered in second place for most beautiful dialect, but also the dialect most people consider ugly.2
See also
References
- Nordisk familjebok (1917) article Skåne, page 1309 (http://runeberg.org/nfce/0695.html)
- Helmer Lång, Skånska språket (Klippan 2002)
Further reading
- Lång & Vide, Skånsk-svensk-dank Ordbok (2002)
External link
- Language Tree (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_lang_family.asp?code=SCY) - Ethnologue report
- the Scanian Institute (http://www.scanianinstitute.edu/) - a Scanian regionalist organization advocating the rights of Scanian as a separate language
Notes
Note 1: Affirmed by for instance Claes-Christian Elert, Allmän och svensk fonetik, 7th edition (1995) page 39, where the chosen distinctive characteristic however is the South Swedish pattern of vowel diphthongization that is the norm for a somewhat larger area including also Gothenburg in the North Note 2: Internet Poll (http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,254290,00.html) in the tabloid Aftonbladet's www-edition (In Swedish)